We highlight more than 50 of the best productions around the region

The 2018 stage season kicks into high gear over the next couple of weeks, with dozens of shows on tap for the Southern Tier and beyond. Let’s take a look at what will be playing on local stages in the coming months.

BINGHAMTON

Binghamton University Theatre Department

Pierre Corneille’s 17th century farce centers on Dorante, who has a problem with truth-telling. Even when it serves no discernible purpose, he compulsively lies through his relationships with those around him, leading to confusion and laughter. (Staged at the Watters Theater in Fine Arts Building on BU’s Vestal campus.)

‘Smart People’

March 9-11

Lydia R. Diamond’s play revolves around the intersecting lives of four Harvard intellectuals: a white neurophysicist, his Asian-American girlfriend who’s a psychology professor, an African-American surgical intern, and an African-African woman who just earned her MFA in acting. (Staged at Studio B in Fine Arts Building on BU’s Vestal campus.)

Broadway in Binghamton

The show — with music by Marvin Hamlisch, lyrics by Edward Kleban and a book by James Kirkwood Jr. and Nicholas Dante — ran for more than 6,100 performances during its original Broadway run from 1975 to 1990. It offers a behind-the-scenes look at auditioning dancers and the challenges with their lives onstage and off.

March 19-22

‘Jersey Boys’

The story of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons is dramatized using the group’s greatest hits, including “Big Girls Don’t Cry,” “Sherry,” “December 1963 (Oh, What A Night),” “Can’t Take My Eyes Off You,” “Working My Way Back to You” and “Rag Doll.”

Chenango County Arts Council

Frank Ferrante originated the off-Broadway role of comedy legend Groucho Marx in “Groucho: A Life in Revue” (written by Marx’s son Arthur) portraying the comedian from age 15 to 85. In 2001, Ferrante starred in, directed and produced a version of the show for PBS television.

Clocktower Theater Company

The farce from British playwright Alan Ayckbourn centers on Elizabeth, a former dancer who will do anything to escape the overbearing clutches of her rich husband, Roland, who is poised to buy a haunted house.

Endicott Performing Arts Center

The Andrew Lloyd Webber musical finds Swallow, a 15-year-old-girl growing up in America’s deep South in the 1950s, discovering a mysterious man hiding out in a barn. When she asks who he is and the first words he utters are “Jesus Christ,” it’s as if all her prayers have been answered.

KNOW Theatre

In Sam Shepard’s acclaimed drama, sibling rivalry rekindles when two estranged brothers reunite for the first time in five years. They decide to collaborate on a screenplay for a Hollywood producer, but the experience does not go as planned.

Schorr Family Firehouse Stage

This interactive comedy is part catechism class, part stand-up routine. Audience members are part of Sister’s class, and she’ll take you back to the days of Latin Mass, meatless Fridays and an old ruler across the knuckles.

March 4

‘Durante!’

Grover Kemble portrays beloved entertainer Jimmy Durante in this rollicking, nostalgic jaunt through the life of American singer, actor, comedian and entertainer known for gravelly speech, butchered comic language and catchy one-liners.

March 10

‘One-Man Star Wars Trilogy’

Charles Ross single-handedly plays all the characters of the original three films by vocal impressions, singing the music and re-enacting the space battles.

SRO Productions III

The Stephen Sondheim musical re-imagines characters from classic fairytales like “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “Rapunzel” and “Cinderella,” describing what might have happened after the original stories ended.

Ti-Ahwaga Performing Arts Center

The musical based on the 2001 film tells the story of Elle Woods, a sorority girl who enrolls at Harvard Law School to win back her ex-boyfriend but discovers how her knowledge of the law can help others.

ELMIRA

Broadway in Elmira

The iconic musical celebrates a true-to-life depiction of performers and their struggle to achieve greatness on the Broadway stage. The auditioning dancers’ stories are simultaneously touching, funny and inspiring, and the musical’s songs and choreography have become part of popular culture.

Jos N. Banks stars in the national tour of “Kinky Boots.”(Photo: Photo by Matthew Murphy)

March 27-28

‘Kinky Boots’

With songs by Grammy and Tony Award-winning pop singer Cyndi Lauper, the musical honors friendship and the belief that you can change the world when you change your mind. Inspired by true events, “Kinky Boots” takes audiences from a gentlemen’s shoe factory in Northampton to the catwalks of Milan.

Clemens Center

Ken Ludwig’s adaptation of the classic tale “The Hound of the Baskervilles” features five actors playing 40 quirky characters venturing into a world filled with disguises, silly accents and murderous deceit.

ITHACA

The Cherry Arts

Leeny Sack’s new interdisciplinary performance experiment blends live therapy and live video with two (actual) public therapy sessions will be presented consecutively, conducted by guest therapists Kate Halliday and Jeff Collins, with Sack as the Constant Client. Experimental video artist Rachel Ferro will live-compose and live-project hyper close-ups of both the client and the therapists throughout.

‘Rule of Thumb’

Feb. 22- March 4

In the English-language premiere of a new work by Serbian playwright and filmmaker Yva Brdar, two Swedish girls are participating in a hitchhiking competition from their hometown to a randomly picked town somewhere in the Balkans.

Hangar Theatre

The Hangar’s CabarEtc series presents this revue showcasing the lives and music of Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Tammy Wynette, Dolly Parton and many others. Featuring Melissa Hammans (“Back to the Garden, August 1969: The Women of Woodstock” and “Mind the Gap”) with music direction by Ithaca’s own Sue Terwilliger, the show includes classic country hits such as “Walkin’ After Midnight,” “Stand By Your Man,” “Coal Miner’s Daughter,” “Jolene” and more.

Ithaca College Theatre

This opera was composed by Jules Massenet, based on Charles Perrault’s 1698 version of the Cinderella fairy tale — the familiar story of obstacles, cruelty, and magic soars with Massenet’s score. The opera will be sung in French with English supertitles.

‘Sense and Sensibility’

March 27-31

This theatrical adaptation of Jane Austen’s novel was written by Ithaca College alumna Kate Hamill, with a production that brings out the absurdity of 19th century England’s gossip-driven society as the Dashwood sisters deal with the challenges of finding love amid the constraints of social class.

Kitchen Theatre

From playwright Martyna Majok comes a portrait of a woman for whom love is a luxury — and a liability — fighting to survive in America. Hard-working Polish immigrant Darja is done dating cheaters and dreamers. It’s time to look out for herself and the only thing that matters more is her son. Over the course of three relationships, two decades and three presidential administrations, Darja must decide how hard she’s willing to fight for what she loves most.

‘Bright Half Life’

March 4-18

Pulitzer Prize nominee Tanya Barfield’s time-bending freefall through love follows Erika and Vicky as they hurtle through 25 years of love and heartbreak and a collection of the moments that make up our lives.

Opera Ithaca

Commissioned in 2010 by Opera Ithaca general director Zachary James for the Metropolis Opera Project, this show tells the story of a hypothetical political leader, Bully, and his quest to impart his important message. He’s joined by the likes of George W. Bush, Richard Nixon, Oprah Winfrey, Ellen DeGeneres and Adolf Hitler, each with an important message to relay. (Staged at The Cherry Artspace, 102 Cherry St., Ithaca.)

‘Tosca’

Feb. 16

Directed by Ellen Jackson, Giacomo Puccini’s legendary opera will feature Megan Nielson, who has sung the title role of Tosca several times to critical acclaim; Brooklyn Discovery called her performance “ravishing” and “exceptional” and said “seeing and hearing her in person” is “vital and indelible.” She’s joined by Paolo Buffagni as Mario Cavaradossi, Zachary James as Baron Scarpia and Jake Stamatis as Angelotti. (St4aged at Community School of Music and Arts, 330 E. State St., Ithaca.)

REGIONAL

Auburn Public Theatre

‘for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf’

Feb. 8-10

Notzake Shange’s Obie Award-winning play reveals what it is to be of color and female in the 20th century. A Q&A with director Gwen Webber-McLeod and choreographer Heather McNeil will follow each performance.

March 22-24

‘Thomas Mott Osborne: Unmasked’

One of APT’s first productions returns, with Ithacan Eric Brooks in the title role. Osborne was a major industrialist, pioneer educator, powerful politician and prison reformer who applied to each of those fields the radical democratic principles of the women who raised him, particularly Lucretia Mott, Martha Wright, Susan B. Anthony and Harriet Tubman; he also mentored Franklin D. Roosevelt.

‘The Innocence of Experience: Fanny Seward in Her Own Words’

March 29-31

An original play by Auburn native Maria Coleman, who also performs the title role, takes a trip back in time with Fanny Seward, the youngest daughter of Secretary of State William Seward, for a first-hand look at history based on the diaries kept by Fanny during the Civil War era.

Center for the Arts

‘The Vagina Monologues’ and ‘A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and a Prayer’

Feb. 2-3

Marking V-Day Homer 2018, the Center Players present a benefit production of Eve Ensler’s Obie Award-winning play that offers a wildly divergent gathering of female voices, including a 6-year-old girl, a septuagenarian New Yorker, a vagina workshop participant and others who talk about traditionally taboo topics. It will be produced in repertory with the regional premiere of “ A Memory, A Monologue, A Rant and a Prayer.”

Cortland Repertory Theatre

Celebrate Valentine’s Day with drinks, dessert and dancing as the New York City-based trio America’s Sweethearts perform “A Century of Sweetness,” which takes a musical journey from 1860 all the way through 1980. Tickets include show and dessert.

‘Magic Beyond Imagination’

March 9-10

A one-of-a-kind intimate magical experience featuring magicians Garrett Thomas and Kozmo and host Joe Maxwell. World Thomas is a consultant for David Blaine, and a magical creator, technician and artist, while Kozmo specializes in sleight-of-hand magic.

‘Dead Meat’ Murder Mystery Dinner

March 17, 23-24

The CRT Guild’s annual murder mystery dinner theater production features the ACME Mystery Company, which tells the tale of the Tortellini Corner Market and the shady characters who make life treacherous for the owner. Tickets include dinner, dessert, coffee and the show.

Also on stage

•Jan. 25: Rochester City Ballet, the only professional ballet company in New York outside of New York City, will perform “Under the Moonlight” with music by David Bowie and other dance numbers. (Clemens Center, Elmira;clemenscenter.org)

•Feb. 11: The Hollywood Special Effects Show is an interactive and explosive family show that goes behind the scenes to discover the science and secrets of creating movie magic. (Clemens Center, Elmira;clemenscenter.org)